Top Tips On How You Can Use a Boot Knife When SHTF

Top Tips On How You Can Use a Boot Knife When SHTF

This article was kindly submitted by John Lewis who is a survivalist, outdoor enthusiast, and blogger on epicwilderness.com. Below John talks about the boot knife and gives us some boot knife top tips.

Boot Knife Introduction

Now, the popularity of boot knives is increasing because these are much cheaper and safer to conceal as compared to other possible self-defense weapons such as guns. Do bear in mind that boot knives are only ‘safe’ to conceal if you know how to keep them properly. This will briefly be discussed in the body of the article.

Getting a suitable boot knife would be important as well. You may want to look at the available blade-point design, which heavily affects how you should use your knife in different situations. For example, straight back blade would be great for slicing and chopping things. But spear point designs can cause more damage by stabbing. If you would like an overview of what boot knives to choose. You can find out more on my Epic Wilderness Blog.

Other aspects include whether the knife is suitable for your boots (usually concerns the length of the knife) and the kind of edges you prefer for your blade. After getting a good boot knife, it is time to put the tips below into practice!

Boot Knife Top Tips

Tip 1: Ensuring That The Boot Knife Is Easily Accessible

Your goal is to ensure that you can access your boot knife in the easiest manner possible. To do so, you need to ensure that firstly the knife is placed on your dominant side of your body and secondly there are no hindrances present as you access the knife.

What clothes you choose to wear will affect how you can conceal the blade as well. Usually for women, since there are more options for clothing such as dresses. You will have limited options of concealing your boot knife since it would affect how you expose your body.

The fact that the blade of your boot knife is small, medium or large would play a role in determining where you should place the knife. Large blades are harder to conceal but they can cause a deeper cut or slice things more efficiently. Hence, you may want to find a balance between those two considerations while ensuring that the knife is highly accessible.

Only when you are able to reach for your boot knife easily in situations where there are imminent threats. Only then it would truly be useful for you in self-defense.

Tip 2: Do Not Compromise How Comfortable You Feel While Wearing The Boot Knife

To ensure that it is comfortably placed on your body, you can look at 2 aspects:

Concerning the first aspect, it is highly encouraged to place the knife at a side where it is much easier for you to draw it and this is usually the dominant side of our body. If it is easier for you to reach the knife from your pocket, you can clip the knife to the pocket located on the stronger side of your body. Or better yet, you can consider putting one knife which you can reach at your boots and one more which you can reach from your waist.

For the second aspect, the way you position the knife should be able to allow you to grab it with the least amount of movement s possible. Another perspective to look at ‘bodily movement’ is that the way the knife is placed should not make you uncomfortable when you are moving. This is especially important if you walk for long-distance such as bringing along a boot knife while hiking or hunting.

Tip 3: Help You To Clear Off Encroachments

This can be seen in two areas as well. The first is when you are hunting or exploring the wilderness where you tend to go to trails which are filled with thickets and bushes where you need to clear your way. Knives are really effective in clearing such pathways ensuring that you are moving in the right direction. If you are using it for these purposes, a knife with a large blade is more preferred, and you can even consider getting large knives like the kukri.

Next, would be when you are bugging out and you want to clear off leaves or bushes to build your survival fire or survival shelter. For a survival shelter, you need a proper base to build your debris hut. Concerning survival fires, getting the right fire platforms would be essential and a survival knife can help you to clear any unnecessary things that are present in the place you want to make the platform. The knife would be great to prepare firewood as well!

Tip 4: Help Build A survival Fire And Cook Food!

To be able to build a teepee fire, you need to constantly fuel the fire with firewood to keep it going. This means that you have to cut some branches which you can reach and store those wood so that it can act as a fuel when the day gets dark.

A knife would also be great at helping you dig, which means you can easily make fire pits in different areas. Digging would also be required if you would want to make a survival shelter. For example, a debris hut where you need to peg some branches into the earth.

After getting a good fire going, you will need to slice up your meat or vegetables into sufficiently small sizes so that it can be cooked efficiently. You can’t just place huge chunks of meat to cook unless the fire you set up is really huge. (which eats up a lot of fuel)

Top Tips On How You Can Use a Boot Knife When SHTF – Conclusion

The post essentially falls under one theme:

Planning ahead. If you think ahead on choosing the most suitable kind of boot knife and finding the best possible way to store it. You will definitely be at an advantage as compared to most people.

Since the reason for concealing a boot knife is to keep yourself safe. You may want to invest more time to think about such matters. The methods you can employ include storing it in the boot sheath, which is the most ideal form of storing the knife. Or, you can store it beside your ankle and even put an extra sheath so that you can safely keep the knife.

If you have any ideas you want to share concerning this matter. Feel free to do so in the comments section below!

Author Bio:

I am John Lewis, a blogger, survivalist, and outdoor enthusiast. You can follow me over at Epic Wilderness.

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